Hey Posters. How about before we proceed with our replies to Wordwind's opening question....

So, dear readers, who are the extremists who would be good to read today in order to escape the consensus?

...let us together review the responses she has received both germane and otherwise thus far.

Germane Otherwise

of troy responded with an obsevation that the problem was related to chaos theory.Themilum kindly suggested a book by a writer who people peopled in consensus reality might think extreme.Jackie then said that she loved the wit of of troy.

Then Faldage said that he weren't spending no $24 for that book.

Etaoin: Right-on. Besides that guy is a science fiction writer.

And not a very good one. said tsuwm

Faldage: If a theory is accepted by the main body of science you best know what you're talking about if you're thinking of overturning it.

The FallibleFiend said Dang. I always thought he was a great writer. Unfortunately, it now appears he is a crank.

Hmm, it seems that the lynch pin mob here guards diligently against heresy...tell you what, Awaders, below is a summary of a news release put out today by the United Nation's World Health Organization on AIDs which is bunk. Read it. I'll be back to debunk it, using only James P. Hogan's words from his book.

Report: Nearly Half of Adults with HIV Are Women

* (Note: My personal comments are in red the green wording is verbatim from Hogan's book.)

Nov 23, 7:38 AM (ET)By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Women make up nearly half of the 37.2 million adults living with HIV and in sub-Saharan Africa the proportion rises to almost 60 percent, according to a UN report released Tuesday.

What blatant spin! Quick - how many women in sub-Saharan Africa have tested positive for HIV?

"Increasingly the face of AIDS is young and female," said Dr Kathleen Cravero, deputy executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Science By Press Conference:"A concerted campaign across the schools and campuses was doing its part to terrorize young people over the ravages of teenage AIDS. Again, figures tell a different story. The number of cases in New York City reported by the CDC for ages 13-19 from 1981 to the end of 1992 were 872. When homosexuals, intravenous drug users, and hemophiliacs are eliminated, the number left not involving these risks (or admitting to them) reduces to a grand total of 16 in an eleven year period. (Yes, 16. You did read that right.)

In every region of the globe, the number of women infected with the deadly virus has risen during the past two years. East Asia had the highest jump with 56 percent, followed by Eastern Europe and Central Asia with 48 percent.

" A simular deception was practiced in Canada, whose population is around 40 million. In 1995, a total of 1,410 adult AIDS cases were reported, 1,295 (91.8%) and 115 (8.2%) females. The next year showed a startling decrease in new cases to 792, consisting of 707 males (89.8 %) and 85 females (10.8%). So the number of female cases actually decreased by 26% from 1995 to 1996. Yet, even though the actual number decreased, because the percentage increased from 8.2% to 10.8% the Bureau of HIV/AIDS issued the ominous warning that AIDS cases among Canadian women in 1996 had dramatically increased."

In sub-Saharan Africa, three-quarters of all 15-24 year olds living with HIV are female.

In sub-Sahara Africa most 15-24 year olds are females because of the genocidal wars that have decimated the young male population. The young females, those lucky enough to reach the 15-24 age bracket that WHO wants to resist sex or to ask politely their husband or their partner-of-choice for him or her to please use a condom, are starving, drinking contaminated water, or are victimized by tzetze flies; all of which crashes the immune system and will there-by ping positive on the WHO test for HIV. What a travesty and waste.

"Young women are almost an endangered species in southern Africa from AIDS for several reasons," Cravero told Reuters.

Many women have no access to education or jobs. They are often economically dependent on men and may not have the power to resist sex or ask their husband or partner to use a condom.

"In some places, the main HIV risk factor for a woman is the fact that she is faithful to a husband with previous or current sex partners," the report said.

What? Is "the report" advocating unfaithfulness? In SOME places? What about other places? God help us.

Teenage girls are acquiring the virus at a younger age and from older men. Violence against women also makes them more vulnerable to infection.

What? Is WHO saying that old African men are savages. What a Victorian thought. But yes I agree, violence against women might also be a bad thing if it causes AIDS.Geez!

CHANGING EPIDEMICS

The annual report by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO), released ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, shows the number of adults and children living with HIV reached its highest level ever in 2004 with an estimated 39.4 million, compared to about 36.6 million two years ago.

Over 3 million people died of the illness this year.

New infections climbed by nearly 50 percent since 2002 in East Asia, mainly because of growing epidemics in China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, there has been a 40 percent jump in the past two years, fueled by the growing number of infections in the Russian Federation and Ukraine. But in sub-Saharan Africa, where 25.4 million people are infected with the virus, is the worst affected region of the world. The epidemic appears to have stabilized in the region, which means an equal number of people are being newly infected with and dying of AIDS.

"According to Dr. Harvey Bialy, an American with long experience in Africa, because of the international funds poured into AIDS and HIV work, 'It has become a joke in Uganda that you are not allowed to die of anything but AIDS....A friend has just been run over by a truck; doctors put it down as a AIDS related suicide.".

Unlike the cases in New York and San Francisco, the conditions that are reported as AIDS in Africa affect both sexes equally, which should be an immediate indicator that we are not talking about the same thing. This is hardly surprising, since "AIDS" in Africa is accorded a different definition. The unifying factor that makes all of the 30-odd disparate indicator diseases "AIDS" in the West is testing positive for antibodies claimed to be specific to HIV. But in Africa no such test is neccessary."

"When UNAIDS annouces that 14 million Africans are AID victims that doesn't mean that there are 14 million bodies that have been counted, but that the computers in Geneva have run a model between positive test results and AIDS and extrapolated the results to the entire continent. Thus in 1984 the WHO reported 1 million cases of "HIV disease" in Uganda. Yet ten years later the cumulative number of AID cases actually reported was 55,000. No one knew what had happened to the other 945,000."

"In the countries of southern Africa, overall, there is a 25 percent prevalence rate," said Cravero.

Sixty-four percent of all HIV positive people worldwide and 76 percent of all women with the virus are in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Caribbean, with an average adult HIV prevalence rate of 2.3 percent, is the second most affected region in the world.

"The epidemic is obviously still ahead of us because we are seeing 39.4 million people (living with HIV)," Cravero said.

"For example, statistics for new AIDS cases were always quoted as culmative figures that could only get bigger, contrasting with the normal practice with other diseases reporting annual figures, where any decline is clear at a glance. And ddespite the media's ongoing stridency about an epidemic out of control, the actual figures from the Centers for Disease Control for every category, were declining, and had been since a peak in 1988. This was masked by repeated redefinitions to cover more diseases, so that what wasn't AIDS one day became AIDS the next, causing more cases to be diagnosed. This happened five times from 1982 to 1993, with the result that the first nine months of 1993 showed as an overall rise of 5 percent what would otherwise - i.e., by the 1992 definition - have been a 33 percent drop."

Although spending to battle HIV/AIDS has almost tripled from $2.1 billion in 2001 to $6.1 billion this year, less than one in five people in low and middle-income countries has access to HIV prevention services.

As many as 6 million people need HIV treatment.

"Universal access to treatment for everyone who needs it is a goal and it is a legitimate goal that everyone can push for," Cravero added.

The WHO has launched a "3 by 5" program to get three million people on treatment by the end of 2005. An estimated 440,000 people in the developing world had access to life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs by June 2004.

"We are working with the WHO to go for that goal with as much gusto as we can possibly get," she added.

Yeah, Cravero, you do that - take the gusto and let the cash go. Those caught in the impetus of the 10 billion bucks HIV/AIDS industry may continue to rationalize, even celebrate, their role and involvement in a worldwide urban myth. But as for most of the rest of us their phoney crusade of paternalistic do-gooding is a crime against nature, reality, and truth and science and God.

May God help them. And us.

_______________________________________________________________

Docs Worry AIDS Drug Use May Be Halted Saturday, December 18, 2004

"It's an issue affecting people's lives. A lot of damage has already been done and we need to do damage control," Onyango said.

Dr. Francis Miiro, a key researcher, dismissed concerns about the testing as discrimination against African scientists and insisted the drug works safely.

In South Africa, the Treatment Action Campaign, which lobbied for access to anti-retroviral drugs in that country, warned that reopening debate about the Uganda study could frighten patients off their treatment, even though subsequent research has confirmed nevirapine is safe and effective.

"I don't see a problem with nevirapine at all," said the group's leader, Zackie Achmat, who found out he was HIV-positive in 1990. "I use it twice daily."

Doctors working in the public health system, which serves the vast majority of South Africans, have privately expressed fears they will be pressured to stop using single-dose nevirapine for pregnant women before alternatives are available.

"I'm of the view that we should use nevirapine till a better situation can be created," said Dr. Ashraf Coovadia, head of the pediatric HIV clinic at Johannesburg's Coronation Mother and Child Hospital. "To halt the program would cause damage to what we have already achieved."

Comment on radio talks shows in South Africa following publication of the AP stories in the local press have included worries that authorities will pull the drug.

President Thabo Mbeki's government has been criticized for its sluggish response to the AIDS crisis. Until this year, it refused to provide anti-retrovirals through the public health system, citing safety and cost concerns.

In July, a South African regulator recommended a halt to the single-dose nevirapine regime for pregnant women, saying a "cocktail" of drugs should be used instead even though such drugs are expensive and available mostly in the United States and other wealthy nations.

On Wednesday, the Health Department said U.S. concerns about the quality of nevirapine research in Uganda supported its cautious attitude to the drug and it was reviewing its guidelines on mother-to-child HIV transmission.

A spokesman, Sibani Mngadi, said the drug is still distributed by hospitals for now.

"It is part of a public health program which cannot be stopped just because this research is continuing," Mngadi said.

Studies show that a single dose of nevirapine to an infected woman during labor and another dose to her newborn baby can reduce the chances of HIV transmission by up to 50 percent.

Nevirapine can cause rashes, liver toxicity and even death in some patients who use the drug on a daily basis to treat HIV, but no serious reactions have been reported after a single dose.

But a South African study found that 39 percent of HIV-infected women who get a single dose of nevirapine go on to harbor virus that is resistant to the drug.

In Uganda, the official in charge of community health services said the issue had become a political one in the country, often praised for its efforts to stop the spread of AIDS.

"The issue is highly contentious, that's why some people don't want to be quoted," Dr. Sam Okware said. "It's been going on for two and a half years."

In a letter obtained by AP, U.S. health officials told Uganda's government in July 2002 that the research had violated federal patient safety rules. The memos show U.S. officials knew about the problems as early as January 2002, but chose not to tell President Bush before he authorized shipping the drug to Africa later as part of a $500 million initiative.

I am not among them. I was directly responding to a statement by someone else to the effect that Hogan was not a very good writer.

While I can't judge whether he is a good writer, I don't know of any better judge than myself of whether I enjoy his writing, which I do immensely regardless of whether he is a crank.

I know lots of people who are brilliant in some thing, but hold completely idiotic views in other areas.

My best friend where I work is a fellow who despises dogs. He can't stand them and will kick them if they jump on him or lick him. This puts us a little at odds , because I've always been a dog lover and recently got a Jack Russell for the kids. It turns out that it was my friend's grandfathers JR who turned him against all dogs. Now I also know that he is a really, REALLY smart guy - at least as far as programming is concerned. I don't view him this way myself, but in the small community in which he known, he is concerned to be something of a programming god by other people many of whom themselves are considered exceptionally intelligent and godlike in their programming abilities. He also has many other fine qualities, BUT he HATES reading. Can't stand it. Makes his eyes and head hurt. It's boring. Refers to bookstores as 'places of evil.' He has a number of other strange qualities that I won't go into.

Now, he's a smart guy and I admire him for his virtues, but he has some really strange weirdness goin' on. He'll be at my house tomorrow with his girlfriend for thanksgiving and it will be one long argument between him and my oldest daughter about the wickedness of reading.

Being intelligent is unfortunately insufficient for preventing one from believing in very foolish things.

I swore I wouldn't get pulled into this, but I, as everybody else on board, have no impulse control. I don't think anybody can prove a connection between one's politics / ideology / bêtes noires and one's ability to write: e.g., Hitler and Celine were both right-wing whackjobs, the former couldn't write and the latter couldn't do much else. (To allay anybody's fears that I'm picking on right-wing bottom feeders, the same can be said for say Joe Stalin and Dashiell Hammett.) Also, while a nicely written book is a joy to read, sometimes I plow through a book because of its content / subject matter / theme.

Standard disclaimer: I tried to read a Hogan novel a decade or so back but never finished it because I wasn't enjoying reading it. At this point I can't even remember its title, but it had a bluish cover.

I think, yes, this is the kind of inquiry that ought to have been made a long time ago. Although I don't consider myself sufficiently knowledgeable in the area, it does seem curious (but unsurprising) that some of what we assume to be historical fact is questionable.

I quoted Clute's take on JPH because when I looked in the EoSF to see what they said about Hogan, Clute captured exactly my reaction to him: his characters are approximately one-dimentional and his stories lack any spark. I don't fault the science in his SF, but that alone doesn't do it for me.

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